The Story of Tatl
by BellaZelda8
Summary: Tatl's past and how she came to know Skull Kid; Tatl's present... Tatl's future?
1. Chapter 1

Sometimes I find myself thinking of the old days. The days when I was free to do whatever I wanted, flying around with my brother Tael… The days when fairies weren't so scarce, when fairies were part of a community.

It was a happy time for fairies. We had no worries. We were a lot younger then, me and Tael. Too young to be assigned to a Kokiri. Too young to know about the warning signs… too young to care.

Our last days were happy. Me and Tael were inseparable, going about our fairy tasks and chores, always together. Me leading, him following. He was a naive little guy, and someone had to watch out for him. That someone was his older sister, me, Tatl. That someone was going to be assigned until He came…

He. Ganondorf.

I was so excited. Fairies are born a lot earlier than the average Kokiri, seeing as we're an older race. A fairy is born, raised, and if a Kokiri-Fairy (the special type of fairy that is bred to be companions with Kokiris) makes it to 8 moons (8 months in Hylian), we begin training. We train for 3 summers (years!) to be assigned to a new baby Kokiri. From then on out, we are independent. Fairies aren't bosses, or in charge; we're more like guides. We warn a Kokiri when there's danger, and offer advice when needed. Yes, being assigned to a Kokiri was a huge achievement. Every kokiri-fairy's dream. It was mine, too. And it was just about to come true…

Tael had been crying that day. His wings were all droopy, and his unique pink-purple color was faded. He kept crying, "Tatl, if you stay here with me, I won't whine when you boss me around, I'll never cry at your insults again!" Pleading, and pleading.

"Tael, grow up. Your almost old enough to be assigned, you know. Only 4 moons to go. You'll be fine without me," I scolded. Truthfully, it hurt me to see him hurt. But I couldn't let him know that. I need to be one step in front of him. I need to be the older sister. And he needs to toughen up so when he gets out in the real world, he won't fade out.

"And FYI! I never insulted you. Don't say those kind of things."

It's not true, I'm actually rather harsh with him. But I have to be. He's a weak fairy. He needs to toughen up. Sure, life with a Kokiri really isn't that hard, but a Kokiri has some strong reliance on her fairy, and that fairy has to be prepared for any situation.

I had just nudged Tael goodbye. That's like a hug. We don't have arms, so we nudge. He was whimpering, but he wasn't crying- for the moment. "Come on, it's not going to be forever. There'll always be gatherings. Cheer up." I ordered. He sniffed, but his wings didn't perk up at all. I sighed to myself. Oh, Tael.

I didn't see what would come next.

I was third in line. We line up, and face the Elder Fairies. They then are supposed to give us some words of wisdom, assign us, and then it's off to the Great Deku Tree. He gives us our final instructions, and we fly away to our assigned house.

We had gotten to the Elders. They were talking about remembering the flying-in-the-rain instructions, and then it happened.

There was a horse neigh, and then an evil laugh. And then Ganondorf came. He stormed into the fairy haven tree, with his huge shadowy horse. Every kind of evil followed him. Poes, Gerudos, Dodongos, and much more. The whole haven erupted into a chorus of bell noises. When fairies are upset, we don't scream like humans. We 'ding'. And the mixture of the noises was chaotic. I was overwhelmed. Everything seemed to go in slow motion, until I found myself hurling at Ganondorf himself, and then everything caught up with me.

I hit him right in the face. But I didn't hurt him. He sent me flying with a smack of his green fist.

"Tatl!" I heard my name and then my brother's ding. I was flying out of control, and I rammed into my brother.

"Tatl!"

"Tael! Get out of here!"

"Not without you, sis!"

"Tael, did you hear me? Get out of here. NOW!" I shouted at him. I puffed my wings up as big as they could go, and I flew above him. He whimpered, and then fled the scene. I was surprised he obeyed, but I didn't have time for that. I needed to focus on the problem at hand.

I was about to take out another Poe, but one of the elders, Navi, bumped into me. "Watch out!" She cried. Even though she was an elder, I ignored her. "Hey, listen! Get out of here!" She shrieked at me. I stared at her, amazed at how annoying she was. But she was right. I was inexperienced. I had the spirit, but not the skills. So I flew.

"Tael!" I made my loudest bell noise, and the pink-purple fairy in front of me turned around. "TATL!" He screamed. He rushed at me, and almost knocked me out of the air.

"Calm yourself, Tael! Don't be such a child!" I scolded, a little too harsh that time. His wings drooped. I sighed.

"Uh…sorry. Don't take offense, okay?" He perked up. There we go. I smiled to myself. Oh, that little fairy. He was such a screw-up. So… ignorant. He had a lot to learn.

We were trying to catch up with the pack, trying to get into the thick of things. But we didn't find them. We came to a fork in the road. Tael, being the rushed child that he was, flew fast down one lane.

It was the wrong lane.

We wandered on, our wings getting lower, us getting closer to the ground. "Just a little more, Tael. We can do this." I said, trying to encourage him.

We had run out of steam. I couldn't go any farther, and neither could he. We sought for cover. We found some. We thought we had flown into a tree stump. We thought we could rest there. We thought…

We thought wrong.

We flew into a hollow tree stump, ignorant of what it really was.

"Tatl, there's no floor!" Tael exclaimed.

"Don't be stupid, it's just really dark, we can't see the floor. Feel free to settle down." I told him. Unfortunately, he obeyed. He slowly started to let himself ease down, awaiting to hit some sort of surface that would prove to be a place he could rest on. Instead, he just kept sinking, and he sunk into the darkness. "Tatl! I can't touch any surface! I'm drowning!" Tael shouted, sounding far away.

"Drowning? There's no water! Can't you just fly back up?" I called. But he didn't call back. Just a scared sounding 'ding ding ding' and then…nothing.

I was scared. For the first time ever, I admitted it to myself. I was alone, and I had lost my brother. I failed my job of older sister. My wings started to droop, and then so did I. Before I realized it, I was falling. Falling…falling…

Strange images swirled around me. Was I hallucinating? I must have been. Masks and faces and other fairies all swirled about me. Was I falling? I felt like I was floating. But suddenly, I was falling again. I was being sucked down! With a loud ding, I tried to fight it. I don't even know why I did. It didn't do anything for me. It didn't help me, because I was still going down. I don't know why I had to go down with a fight. I just… don't know.

I landed with a thud, and I passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

"Sis!" I heard my brother call, faintly. "Sis! Wake up!" I opened my eyes. He was floating above me, his wings raised.

"Ungh… where are we?" I asked, trying to get back up. It was difficult lying on your side as a fairy. Tael hit my back with his wings, and I got up in the air. "Thanks." I said, fluttering my wings to make sure they were functional. "What happened?"

"It was crazy, Tatl! We thought we were going to hit the bottom of the stump right? Well, we didn't! I just… fell! I think I was hallucinating or something, but that's not important. We fell down a HOLE Tatl!"

"Wow, okay. Where are we?"

"Um… I don't know."

I sighed. "Well, can't we just fly back up?" I looked up, but there was nothing. We were in some sort of forest. And… it was like we had fallen out of the sky. Into where?! Nothing looked like anything I recognized. It was weird and unknown. And I didn't like it.

"We better get a move on. Come on!" I told him, and… we started. I flew ahead, he followed.

We flew… and flew. Nothing seemed familiar. Nothing felt familiar. Even our flight patterns. He was scared. I was scared. And then… it started to rain.

"Tatl! I can't remember how flying-in-the-rain instructions! What do we do? Oh, I hate the rain!" Tael whined. And whined. And whined. So much, I couldn't even think straight. Therefore, I couldn't remember the instructions. But I didn't even have the energy to tell him to shut up. So we just flew faster, him panicking on the outside, me on the inside.

Finally, we came to a clearing. Finally, I saw shelter. It was different looking. All the trees in the forest we were desperately flying through were unstable; they were insufficient. But this… it looked like a log. A big log that got the bottom cut out, and then got stuck to the ground. It was shelter.

"Over there!" I shouted at Tael, and we flew. We were wet, cold, and scared. But when we got there, there was already someone. A kid who looked like a scarecrow. He was shivering and whimpering, almost as much as Tael. I looked at Tael, and he looked at me, and we both nodded.

Here was a little skull kid. He was scared, wet, and cold. Just like us.

We flew into his arms, and we all huddled together. It was weird, but somehow made sense.

The next day was different. Different than any other day. Different as in I had nothing to do. I didn't wake up with anything on my mind. No tasks, no chores, no harsh comments. I just woke up… blank. Nothing except longing on my mind. Longing for my fairy family… longing for the fairy haven. "You'll see them again." I whispered to myself.

"That's right. You'll see them again." A high-pitched, cackling voice said. I spun around and saw him. The skull child.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"The olden ones just called me Skull Kid." He answered.

"Olden ones?" I questioned.

"Never mind…"

"Okay…"

Tael flew over to us. "What do we do, Tatl? I wanna go home!"

"Stop complaining. We'll get home…"

Skull Kid looked at us. "Where do you guys live?" He asked.

"Fairy Haven. Near the Lost Woods."

"Lost Woods? Where's that?"

"You know, Hyrule?"

"Hyrule?"

"The country we live in! The world we live in! Hyrule!"

"This is Termina, the world of 4 lands. Swamp, mountain, ocean canyon. Termina."

When he said that, Tael's wings stopped, and he dropped to the ground. "Tael! Arg, quit fainting, will you!" I groaned. After Skull Kid woke him up by poking his wings, Tael whimpered.

"I, I wanna go home, Tatl. I wanna go home!"

For once, I had nothing to say. The thing was, I didn't know how to get home. I wasn't sure of anything. I felt faint for the first time in my life, and almost dropped. "Whoa, whoa! Keep upright! Who knew fairies were so weak!" Skull Kid cackled then, a cackle you never even know could come out of a person.

"Fairies aren't weak. We're lost. Ganondorf separated us from our home. Our whole clan could be destroyed right now. No way are we weak. We're scared and lost, but not weak." I stated. Skull Kid stared at me, and smiled.

"I like you!"


	3. Chapter 3

"Come on, let's have some fun!" Skull Kid crowed.

It had been 4 days since our falling into Termina, and we had done nothing. No searching like Skull Kid promised, no quest for Hyrule like Skull Kid promised. We just hung around and talked and played with Skull Kid. I hated it.

"Skull Kid, you promised us we could look for the hole me and Tael fell through. Are we gonna do it today or what?!" I asked him.

"Oh, lighten up Tatl! I have a day planned for us! We can draw and laugh and play in the grass!"

"Tomorrow then?" Tael said hopefully.

"Tomorrow!" Skull Kid replied.

"You better hold to your word, Skull Kid." I warned him. He just cackled at me, and we began our day of 'fun'. We played and ate and drew pictures. I suppose it was fun, but the feeling of something not being right kept nagging me. Of course, it was the longing to be home and the annoyance over Skull Kid's empty promises, but there was something else. About the Skull Kid himself… but I couldn't quite spot it.

The next day took a turn for the worst: Skull Kid kept his promise.

"Okay, ready to go?" Skull Kid said abruptly.

"Go where?" Tael asked innocently.

"Go search for your home!"

I felt my wings perk up right away. "Yeah, let's do that." I agreed.

So we did. We traveled into the mountain range, and then entered into a forest. We walked for a while, going deeper and deeper in, every few minutes Skull Kid asking if we saw anything familiar. The answer was always no. Eventually, Skull Kid got bored. And that's when my trouble began.

He was a creepy man, traveling all alone. We didn't hear him come, didn't even see his shadow. We were just going along looking about, and then Skull Kid grabbed both of us and hauled us off the road. "Whoa! What the heck Skull Kid?!" I shouted at him.

"Shush! Look!" He pointed at the man. He was a Mask Salesman. He dressed strangely, unlike a guy from Termina. He was obviously foreign, and looked like some mystic or something. I hated his eerie gaze.

"Look at all those masks! Which one's your favorite, Tatl?" Tael asked. I groaned inside. Of all the ignorant things he could say…

"I like that one." Skull Kid said, pointing to a mask. "And that one." He pointed at another. He then cackled a quiet bit, and said, "I like them all."

Before me and Tael could make sense of what was going on, Skull Kid darted out and apprehended the guy. "You don't want to do that…" the Mask Salesman said, quietly.

"Whatever!" Skull Kid said, and then tackled the guy. He was out in minutes. Me and Tael flew to Skull Kid's side, and I was in shock. "What do you think you're doing?!" I hissed at him. He ignored me, and proceeded to roll the guy over, and search him.

The minute he pulled the mask out, it was like an evil wind blew upon the forest. The mask was heart-shaped, with spikes sticking out of it. It had 2, big yellow eyes. "Skull Kid… that's scary." Tael whimpered, hardly making a noise.

"Yeah, Skull Kid, put it away." I ordered. "Put it back, and let's go."

Skull Kid looked at me, and then looked back at the mask.

"Skull Kid. Put it away. Now."

Skull Kid turned back to me. "Fine, fine. I'll put it away." He pulled a sack out of the Mask Salesman's mask-carrying-thing, and put the mask in the sack, and then placed the sack over his shoulder.

"Um, no, Skull Kid. Put it back. With the salesman."

"Aww come on Tatl. Don't be a spoil-sport. Lemme keep it!"

"Yeah, Tatl, let him keep it." Tael chimed in.

I spun around on Tael. "You stay out of this!" I shouted at him. He cowered.

I turned back to the Skull Kid. "Fine! You can keep the stupid mask. But… just don't… go messing around, would ya?"

I might have said those words, but he didn't listen.


	4. Chapter 4

Everything went downhill from then. For me and Tael, and for the Skull Kid, even though none of us realized it at the time.

We all became… adapted to evil. That mask… it brought it upon us. It changed us. I stopped feeling bad when I scolded Tael, or even the Skull Kid himself. We started doing bad things, things that I regret even now.

We started out with little things. Skull Kid was part of this club, the Bomber's Society (its name is longer than I care to mention). He had liked it when he joined, and they included me and Tael, some of the time, but after the mask came into the picture, he treated it like a project. His project. He began to play pranks on them, not just innocent ones, mean ones. Eventually, they kicked him out.

But it wasn't just the bombers. It was a lot of people in Clock Town. Before, they would just shake their fist at the occasional prank he would play on them. But it grew. It grew so much that a mob formed. Skull Kid had picked on so many people, and now they were getting their revenge. We had to run out of town, and tried to take cover at the ranch. But the gates were closed.

Eventually, when the mob wore off, we found cover in the old log. "Those ranch girls are gonna get it tomorrow!" Skull Kid said, pulling the mask out. He placed it on his face, and then jumped at Tael.

"Boo!"

Tael 'ding'ed really loudly, and then started to hyperventilate. "Calm down!" I told him. Skull Kid cackled.

"Don't do that again, Skull Kid." I said, and then, from exhaustion, I settled down.

Everyday grew worse and worse. The next day, Skull Kid was WEARING the mask. And he found out something: It was magic.

And then over the next two days, he manipulated it.

He made those ranch girls pay. He manifested a rock. And then placed it in front of their gate. But… I was okay with it at the time. It was that mask.

Day after day, the pranks got bigger and bigger, to the point where they weren't even pranks anymore. He started to do curses. He could curse anything. He started cursing the land, and even some people. One of them being a man who was engaged. Skull Kid turned him from a man with a future to an ugly child.

He even hurt an old lady. She was an innocent witch. They were friends. And he hurt her… I just stood by and watched…

He did so much evil, I can't number it all.

But one act outdid them all.

"Hey, Tatl, wake up!" Tael shouted into my ear.

"Agh, come on Tael, I wanna sleep!" I chided.

"No, Tatl, you've gotta see this."

I heard the desperation in his voice. So I got up. And I looked up. And there it was.

A moon. A big, gray moon. With a mouth. And eyes. The eyes… they looked like the mask's eyes. Large, yellow, and they seemed to stare into your very soul. They looked as if they could burn you if you looked into them too long, but also like they didn't care. They were just… there. Empty, and yet full.

The moon had a mouth and a nose. The nose looked normal enough, excluding it was a nose on a moon. But the mouth… the moon was baring his teeth, giving it an angry appearance, but it contrasted with the eyes. Looking at the eyes, they looked… lonesome and scared. But the mouth looked angry. All together, the moon just looked confused and evil, but at the same time, it looked like it wanted to destroy everything in its path.

I shuddered. "What is that?" I asked, almost breathlessly. I was confused. This wasn't here yesterday. It contrasted the other moon, the pure moon.

The cackle. "You like it, fairy?" Skull Kid mocked me.

"No. Where'd it come from?" I asked, coldly, trying not to show my fear.

Skull Kid just cackled again, and resumed staring at it. "Where did it come from?" I whispered to Tael.

"I don't know. Skull Kid was muttering something in the middle of the night, sitting where he is right now, not here under the log. He was staring at the sky with his hands lifted up. But…" he paused, and his wings drooped a little bit. "I was scared. I closed my eyes… and went back to bed." I groaned.

"Don't you think you could have stopped him?!" I yelled.

Tael whimpered. "I don't know. I was drowsy…" I shook my head at him, and then flew over next to the Skull Kid.

"What is that thing, Skull Kid?"

"A weapon of destruction."

I sighed, exasperated. "Yeah, sure, right. Skull Kid, seriously, where'd it come from? And when do you plan on sending it back?"

Skull Kid turned and looked at me, and then opened the sack on his lap. He took out the mask, and then put it on. "Never mind that, Tatl. Let's go look for your fairy haven!" He jumped up, and started towards the swamp. "Come on, Tael." I called, and we flew after him.

"Hey, where are we going?" I called to Skull Kid. We were at Woodfall. "Wait a minute." He said.

He stooped down, and put his hand in the water, and started muttering some stuff. Suddenly, the clear, sparkly water turned a sickly purple, and looked syrupy. "Whoa! Skull Kid, what did you do to this water?" I shrieked. "Skull Kid, this looks poisonous! You've gone too far now! You've done nothing but evil for the past week, and I'm done with this. Either change your ways, or we're outta here!"

Instead of answering me, he just turned and looked at me. The mask's eyes stared at me, into my soul. And… I stopped. This is okay. This is fine. Anyone stupid enough to wade thru the swamp deserved to die in the water.

"Can we go home now?" Tael asked.

"Yes."

And then he rose into the air. But before we actually started searching, we flew around Termina. And every place we flew over changed.

After that, we flew into an unknown forest. Skull Kid flew into some trees, and called to us. "Over here!" He called. We flew into some trees, and kept going up. But instead of flying into the sky, it became darker and darker. And then…

Woosh! We burst into a haven of trees. It was so familiar. But instead of feeling happy and excited, I didn't feel anything. I wanted to go back. I didn't like the feeling of nostalgia.

"Is this it, Tatl?" Tael asked.

"Of course it is, Tael. Don't be stupid."

"Come on, I have no further use of you fairies. Let's get you home." Skull Kid said, and then started walking forward.

"Okay… wait, what?" I said.

He ignored me, and kept walking. Everything felt so familiar… yet I didn't like it. And then the traveler came.

Skull Kid jumped him.

And that's where my adventure began.

So, now, here I am. I'm not under the influence of evil anymore. It was Link's presence that caused it to wear off. Link… he was almost like a holy being. Never speaking, yet one of my most best friends.

We've parted ways now. Me and Tael now live in Termina on the ranch. We live with Grog and his Cucco's. We spend blissful days, helping and hanging out with Cremia and Romani. Tael has taken quite a liking to Romani, and Cremia is a trusted friend to me.

Sometimes I just float in the sun and think about me. My past, the present, my future. Sometimes I wish I could do it all away. I wish I never experienced that.

I know I'll never get home with a magical being's help. I'll never leave Termina without some crazed turn of events.

But I've got my brother. And Romani and Cremia.

I guess I'll be okay.


End file.
